Marginal nature is found in urban wastelands such as neglected creeks, wastewater treatment ponds, vacant lots, road and rail waysides, brownfields, fencerows, dumps, and alleyways. What emerges in this wastespace is the unintended product of human activity and nature's unflagging expressiveness, which I call Marginal Nature.

Saturday, May 06, 2017

All the CER Lunchtime Lecture power point presentations 2011 to April 2017 - now online

Center for
Environmental Research Lunchtime Lecture by Kevin M. Anderson

2017 Lunchtime
Lectures – Understanding Urban Nature: Ecology, Culture, and the American City

May 2017 Lunchtime Lecture - Nature in the
City: Urban Habitats and the Degradation Myth

Since the 19th century, books about urban
natural history have documented the richness of habitats and diversity of
species to be found in American cities. However, traditionally in America, biologists
and ecologists study nature in “wildlands” and so view urban nature as degraded
and disturbed in comparison. Urban nature worthy of professional study and
protection is whatever remnant habitats remain from before the city was built,
and the rest is a problem to correct. However, in recent decades, the rapid
growth of urban ecology in America has begun to rewrite this simplistic
degradation myth into a more complex story of urban biodiversity across a wide
range of urban habitats and to rediscover historical books of urban natural
history that add more texture to the story. Join us for a lecture about
the past, present, and future of urban natural history.

Repeated twice more in May:

May
16 Tuesday NOON to 1pm at the Center for Environmental Research – Hornsby Bend

Center for
Environmental Research Lunchtime Lecture by Kevin M. Anderson

May 2017 Lunchtime Lecture - Nature in the
City: Urban Habitats and the Degradation Myth

May
18
Thursday NOON to 1pm at One Texas Center 505 Barton Springs Road + South
First Street, Room 325

Center for
Environmental Research Lunchtime Lecture by Kevin M. Anderson

May 2017 Lunchtime Lecture - Nature in the
City: Urban Habitats and the Degradation Myth

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About Me

Kevin M. Anderson is a geographer and philosopher who is the coordinator of the AWU - Center for Environmental Research. Kevin has studied at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania [BA], Durham University, England, Ohio University [MA] where he taught philosophy and symbolic logic for several years. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin with a dissertation entitled: Marginal Nature: Urban Wastelands and the Geography of Nature. His environmental career began on a Pennsylvania farm raising chickens, pigs, and purebred Black Angus cattle, and it has since ranged from running an organic farm in Potomac, Maryland to starting a river conservation foundation in Northeastern Hungary as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He is a co-founder and president of the Texas Riparian Association.